A Convergence of Media Empires and Telecommunications Empires

CNN and MSNBC have come in for much criticism for irresponsible reporting and political bias–merited criticism, IMO–especially in the wake of the Mueller report.  It has been too rarely, noted, though, that these networks are not independent entities.  CNN is owned by AT&T, and MSNBC is owned by Comcast.

Not to be left behind, Verizon appears to me to also be playing the political-bias game through its Yahoo service. I have a Yahoo Mail account (Yahoo owned by VZ since 2017), and every day I get a “news” email from them.  A high percentage of these are anti-Trump in tone, and I doubt that an objective observer could look at a month or more of these communications and conclude that any attempt at balance was being made.

From a business standpoint, I question whether there is any real synergy between a telecommunications business and an entertainment and “news” business.  After combining Yahoo and AOL into its ridiculously-named ‘Oath” division, Verizon has already written down $4.8 billion in asset value (and also changed the name.)  I doubt that AT&T management is really going to add any value to its vast Time-Warner acquisition.  But, not being a shareholder or bondholder in any of these companies, I really don’t care all that much.  What I do care about are the societal and public-policy implications of these amalgamations.

Why is AT&T adopting, through its CNN subsidiary, a strident anti-Trump position?  Does this reflect AT&T’s corporate policy, or are they merely adopting a decentralized management style and letting subsidiary-level management make their own decisions? Does the anti-Trump drum-beating that I perceive in Yahoo reflect Verizon corporate policy?  Do they even know it is going on, or is it just a lower-level decision in a department that is now probably perceived as being not all that important or strategic?  Does it make sense for VZ to offend a lot of people–somewhere around 50% of the US population–current or potential customers for a wide range of their services–in the name of a strident opinion stream that doesn’t even have any direct revenue generation associated with it?

TV news viewership isn’t what it once was, but is still nontrivial.  The assets and income streams of these telecommunications companies are so vast that they can easily afford to subsidize marginal or outright unprofitable news operations on behalf of corporate political opinions or those of individual executives. At some point, they may hit ‘negative synergy’, as the political slant of the news operations drives away customers for other services, but they don’t seem very concerned about that and relatively few people, so far, even seem to realize the connection between the TV channel or the online systems and the telecommunications company that owns it.

When people talk about ‘the media’, they need to recognize who/what the media actually is.

Russia to healthcare in one day. What now ?

Last Friday, the Mueller report was submitted to the DOJ. Monday, left wing media saw ratings collapse.

What next ? Why Healthcare, of course.

Obamacare, which is a form of expanded Medicaid, costs too much and provides too little care (high deductibles) unless you are a Medicaid recipient. It was designed to shift costs to the insured from the poor. It also was a gift to certain sectors of the healthcare industry. Ted Kennedy criticized healthcare as a “cottage industry” with lots of independent doctors doing their own thing as small businesspeople. That is why doctors have traditionally been conservative. Obamacare changed that. Healthcare is now an industry with doctors mostly on salary and controlled by administrators.

I talked to a young ophthalmologist last week, who had treated a mild eye disorder. He told me he moved to Tucson to work at U of Arizona medical center, which used to be called “UMC” by everybody in Arizona. He explained that the UMC administrators had gotten deeply into debt installing a new “Electronic Health Record” system and sold the UMC to Banner Health. This is a chain that runs the former UMC and has seen an exodus of university faculty physicians. Even my barber noticed. He told me several weeks ago that his surgeon, who had operated on him, got tired of constantly being told he only had 15 minutes to see each patient and left for the VA. The ophthalmologist was disappointed as he had looked forward to working at the academic center.

Traditionally, administrators hated doctors. We made their lives more difficult by advocating for patients. I once told an administrator that if the hospital did not reduce the markup on pacemakers, I would testify for the patient if they sued him for the balance of the bill. They didn’t like it but knew I could go elsewhere,and take my patients there. If I had been an employee, I would not have that choice. Several years ago, I explained how we started a trauma center in our hospital. Since then, the hospital has been sold to a non-profit run by nuns. The surgical group that ran the trauma center for 35 years was fired two years ago. They had declined to sell the group to the hospital. They were replaced by six female surgeons no one had ever heard of and who had never applied for privileges at the hospital or been evaluated by the Surgery Department. No one knew anything about them except one member of this new group had applied for a job at the trauma group and been turned down.

There were a few comments about some less satisfactory results on trauma cases but that has quickly gotten quiet.

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Pariah

So it seems that race-hate faker Jussie Smolett walks away, free and clear. As a three-way protected person – being of color, gay and a C-list celebrity – and one with apparently plenty of pull among the Chicago political overclass, this probably should have been expected. Race-hate fakers generally seem to get away with the proverbial slap on the wrist and a stern warning not to do it again, once the initial outcry dies down and investigators have done a belated job in proving the initial outrage to have been faked. The same-old, same-old for Lil’ Jussie is about par, in the mind of cynics like myself.

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Rep. Ocasio Luxury Yacht

Sarah Hoyt:

But we should not treat their instrument, sent forth to try to break our system, as some kind of serious intellectual, or even, as I’ve heard Representative Full Stop called, “energetic and full of potential” or some other idiocy.
 
We did that with Obama, a man who couldn’t string two words together without a teleprompter, and what did it get us? Nothing. It got the establishment confirmed in their idea that he was “very smart” and “a deep thinker.”
 
Most of the “intellectual establishment” and the artificers of public discourse are not themselves smart at any level. What they are in fact is good at reading social capital.
 
[. . .]
 
Do you like losing the culture? Are you committed to handing future generations to the left by default? Are you absolutely sure the best possible thing would be for the narrative of the left to become universal?
 
No? Then start making fun of them. Every chance you get, you push their nose in. You make them so ridiculous that even the left is ashamed to count these total idiots in their number.
 
And frankly, there are few more idiotic than Representative Full Stop.

Well stated and worth reading in full.

Seth Barrett Tillman: Brexit: Crisis or Success?

What you are witnessing in the UK is not a crisis. It is a success. When most geographical units secede from a larger entity, they do so unilaterally, and sometimes violently. They do it through war or, if lucky, soft power. The UK is doing everything in accord with publci int’l law, EU law, and its domestic legal system. No armies involved. No violence. No threats of violence. Just elections. It is democracy and it is messy. It compares well to our war dead in 1776 and 1861. The world should be taking lessons–not mourning Brexit.

Read the whole thing.